2011 In Review

I don't really have a top ten list of films for 2011 because I don't feel like I saw a complete sample of things that came out - I missed A LOT of movies that I wanted to see.  But several things did come out that, if I had a top ten list, would most likely have made the cut:

X-Men: First Class and Captain America, both two of the finest super hero movies the genre has turned out since, well, ever.

Drive, which won't get nearly as much awards press as I want it to.

Hugo, which I liked a whole lot more than I expected to, due to an unfortunately misleading trailer.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, a movie which manages to be more exciting than both the original source material and the first adaptation.

Margin Call, which I tried to write about but had difficulties I can't really articulate; it's a wonderfully sharp piece of writing and acting that I maybe didn't really understand completely?  There's a lot of financial business that I didn't get, but it's a testament to the power of the actors that it didn't matter.  Check it out if you get the chance - I don't understand how it didn't get a wider release, with the surplus of powerhouse names in it (Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Kevin Spacey, Bradley Cooper, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany).

Maybe Moneyball?  I didn't write about this one, either, because I have a problematic relationship with it.  I want to recognize the wonderful writing and excellent performances (especially by Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman), but...it didn't resonate with me the same way it seems to have with the rest of the world.  I just didn't feel like there was enough of a story to fill the whole time slot - all the bits about Pitt's family life felt like padding to me, and didn't really add anything in terms of emotional development.  I wish it had been a really tightly-focused 60 minute film, concentrating on the baseball aspects of Pitt's character's life rather than a weakly-written relationship with a daughter I didn't care about.  The fascinating moments of this movie are the negotiations and the game itself, not the private lives of the characters.

If I get the chance to see more 2011 films before the end of January, I'll do a list for you guys.  Otherwise, what's above is pretty much my greatest hits of things I actually saw.

My biggest hope for 2012 in terms of film is simple: MORE.  ANIMATED.  MOVIES.  Is it just me, or was 2011 COMPLETELY LACKING in good animation?  I'm not sure I realized it until I watched the Golden Globes on Sunday, but to follow 2010, a year which gave us Toy Story 3, How to Train Your Dragon, and Tangled with a spat of sequels and poorly reviewed items that disappeared almost as soon as they hit theaters seems...sad.  I hope Pixar delivers with BRAVE, is all I'm saying.

Drive, or Ryan Gosling's Official Oscar Bid

I knew precisely three things about Drive before I walked into the theater:

1. Ryan Gosling plays a stunt driver, who
2. Moonlights as a criminal getaway driver, and
3. May or may not curb stomp someone.

Turns out that this was exactly the way to experience this slow-like-honey action film.
I don't actually want to say a whole lot about this movie, because I loved it and I want you to experience it the way that I did.  So, first off, I'm going to say officially: I loved Drive and you should PROBABLY go see it immediately.

Drive is a strange, strange little action movie that does not behave at all like an action movie should.  Oh, in some respects it's all there: car chases, fight scenes, high stakes, a variety of guns and shivs.  But the tension is constant; there are no adrenaline spikes because you're nervous all the time.   Nicolas Winding Refn pulls his shots out like taffy, stretching every moment until you're ready to jump out of your skin.  Everything pulls in Drive, from the repetitive refrains in the soundtrack numbers to the long stretches of artificial light.  Flickering lights in the elevator, streetlight passing over Gosling's face, the yellowed glow of shoddy apartment light; Gosling and Carey Mulligan (playing, quite effectively, Gosling's rundown neighbor with a young son and a husband in prison) are frequently bathed in artificial light.  Instead of looking cliche, it ends up feeling very dreamlike and warm.

It's the Ryan Gosling show from start to finish, commanded not only by the force of Gosling's performance but also in the very composition of the film.  Gosling mirrors Refn's pacing, reveling in the pauses and joyfully taunting you with every bated breath you're forced to take until he finally, FINALLY delivers his lines.  It's in those pauses that Gosling's performance really shines; Gosling does most eloquent acting in the pauses before he speaks, and in the way he clenches the steering wheel, and in the way that he drives.  It reminded me of Heath Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain, in that Gosling delivers a full body performance without actually needing to say anything at all.

Drive keeps you simmering without ever quite bringing on the boil; it has moments with more actions than others, sure, but the filming style and lighting and music act together to give even the most violent sequences an ethereal, almost sleepy quality.  It's a demanding movie that requires a lot from its audience, but if you can have some patience and revel in the silences with Gosling and Refn, the payoff is totally worth it.